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‘Finding Meaning’ gives me license to worship in all of Laguna’s churches. I was recently at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as they prefer to be called (though often referred to as LDS or Mormons). It was a special day because two Laguna boys were reporting on...

Healing Hands Way back in 1775, the Continental Congress asked the colonies to pray for wisdom in forming a nation. Pretty good outcome, don’t you think? In the darkest hours of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln called for a day of prayer. Within 10 weeks, the war had...

Excuse Me, Mr. Gallup One of the benefits of hometown newspapers like the Indy is their support of local institutions, including Laguna’s churches. By contrast, the executive editor of the New York Times candidly acknowledged a while back that, “We don’t really get religion.” The...

Famous Physicists in Laguna Each week I scan the horizon for a topic about meaning worthy of 500 words in our beloved Indy. Today, it’s the great (and unconventional) physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman, one of the most interesting of the many interesting characters...

Overwhelming Meaning I did the Palm Sunday marathon, scurrying between Laguna churches as they began their Easter Week. Thanks to a Laguna service starting every half-hour from 7:30 a.m. forward, I got to sample six churches, though not able to enjoy the whole service. It was an...

Palm Sunday I write as the Indy traveling correspondent to little Midway, Utah. It’s a picturesque village high in the Wasatch range of the Rocky Mountains. Swiss emigrants helped settle Midway in the 1860s and the Beautiful Wife, you’ll recall, is half-Swiss. Which half I can’t...

A Walk Through 1920 Laguna Take a walk through the Laguna Beach of a century ago, guided by a dead man. Harold Weaver was an English jockey who emigrated West to become a cowboy, but wound up a landscape artist. If you check the 1920 census, you’ll see he was the enumerator....

Heroes Among Us Was there a high school teacher who made a difference in your life? One you wish you could have given an award to? I remember two, and it’s a personal regret that I never acknowledged them. That problem has been solved in local high schools with the Crystal Apple...

Dick Dale at the Rendezvous Did you read about the March 16 passing of pioneer surf-music guitarist Dick Dale, who got his start firing up the famous stomps at the Rendezvous Ballroom on Balboa back in the ‘60s? Dale got his throbbing style from Big Band drummer Gene Krupa, who...

Luck of the Irish To honor St. Patrick’s Day, I should tell the story of John Monahan, a son of Ireland no longer with us. I worked for John at a Procter & Gamble plant that used to be in Long Beach. I was starting my career; he was nearing the end of his. He had been a...

Kids Doing Better Sometimes you bump into a subject so uplifting you just have to tell about it. This one’s about a sensitive topic—sex. It’s a wonderful thing, sex, but there are a few issues. Adolescents, for example, may be drawn to it before they have matured enough to...

Spirituality and Lent It is the spiritual dimension that gives substance to the meaning of our lives. Spirituality is innate, it lies within us all—I’ve never known a person to deny their spirituality. The challenge, in the complexity of life, is to set aside time to cultivate...

Faith in the Time of Doubt You have to love the way rock hounds take a common stone and polish it into a thing of glistening beauty. The rock tumbler—a small motorized barrel that holds rocks, polishing grit, and water—provides the process, tumbling the rocks non-stop for weeks...

The Summer of ’34 This is a true story dug from Laguna’s past. A story about love, and how it shapes our lives. In the summer of ’34, five people crossed paths in Laguna. Four were married, and neighbors. Gigi Parrish, an aspiring actress appeared in three movies that year. Born...

Love That Transforms This is the 52nd “Finding Meaning” column. It’s been a year. The first column, like this one, followed Groundhog Day. It was a cue to that transcendent movie, “Groundhog Day,” featuring Bill Murray and the delectable Andie McDowell. A year ago, I wr...